Be loved or be hated
John 15:18-19
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
See the theme for this month is be loved
But the big question is who do we want to be loved by?
See we all have a thing within us that wants and yearns to be loved
But who do we want to be loved by?
Do we want to be loved by God?
Or better yet do we even see or believe that we are loved by God
Is his love enough?
The fact of the matter is this sometimes we can’t accept God’s love because deep down inside we don’t even love ourselves
And because we don't accept God’s love but we still have that thing within us that yearns for love we search for it in all the wrong places
Has anybody been there before?
We search for it in the:
The Bottle
The pipe
The party
The opposite sex
Power
All these things may give us a sense of love but they are not truly love
We here about many different kinds of love in the Bible
Philos
Eros
Agape
Quote
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truely loved is well alot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self righteousness and fortifies us for any difficulty life throws at us.
See the only one that can truely love you 100% and truely know you 100% is God.
This is the kind of love we ought to strive for.
See hidden underneath the love of the world is a whole bunch of selfish motives.
The world throws that phrase love around so loosely that it has pretty much become a cliche.
“I love you”
“I’m in love”
But really theres no depth behind those words anymore
See sometimes we think were in love but really its just a bunch of emotions.
It’s like this guy bill he was talking with his friend steve about what love is and the possibility of love.
Bill said I thought I was in love three times.
Steve said thought. What do you mean.
Bill said well 3 years ago I was in love with a woman who wanted nothing to do with me. Bill said to steve wasn’t that love.
Steve said no that was just obsession.
Bill said well there was also a woman 2 years ago I cared deeply for. A very attractive woman who didn’t understand me. Steve said wasnt that love.
Bill replied no that was just lust.
Then bill said and just last year i met a woman while I was on a cruise ship. She was gorgeous, intelligent, a great conversationalist, and had a super sense of humor. I followed her everywhere on that ship. I would get a very strange sensation in my stomach. Steve asked well wasnt that love.
Bill replied no that was just motion sickness.
See the bible is very clear that we cannot live to please God and be loved by the world.
It’s either one or the other
Mt 6:24
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
We cannot serve 2 masters
So what does it take to be loved by the world
Pleasing people attitude
Now i'm not saying be rude to people
But sometimes we put a priority on seeking the approval of people, and we dont even care about the approval of God
Sometimes we can be so afraid of peoples opinions that we fear stepping out
That we fear speaking the truth.
Because the thing about the truth is this. It hurts
And alot of people cant handle the truth
Galatians 1:10
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Whos approval are we looking to gain
Who are we trying to please.
We should be trying to please God in all that we do.
Because God has already given us the approval
1 thessalonians 2:4
On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts.
See weve been given the truth so we can speak the truth
Lauren daigle
My thing is this if you love me you should tell me like it is straight up. Cause if I love somebody I’m gonna tell em like it is.
But do we do that.
A few years back Penn Jillette who is an outspoken atheist after one of his magic shows was given a bible
He said this to the man although he’s an atheist. He said I have no respect to Christians who don’t evangelize.
“I’ve always said,” Jillette explained, “I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. I don’t respect that at all. If you believe there is a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever, and you think it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward.
“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate someone to believe everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?”
Identify with the world
See often times we try to identify ourselves with the world.
Thats why people get involved in Gangs and certain scenes or certain movements
So they can identify themselves with something
But really they are identifying themselves with the world.
They don’t realize yet that there identity is found in Christ
Because what does the Bible say we were made in the image of God
See I can honestly say before God came into my life I didnt know who I was
I tried to put on a front to identify myself, but I really didnt know who I truly was.
At least not who I truly was
And I spent a big portion of my time just worrying about fitting in identifying with the world
See the world wants to put a label on everything
But when we begin to know who we are in Christ we dont have a need to identify with the world
1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
See the world wants to label everything
It wants to put a label on everybody
Conform to the patterns of this world
So what is the pattern of this world?
Well it’s whatever the world deems acceptable
Fitting in to what society deems as normal
Do whatever makes you feel good
Seek after your dreams
Go after the desires of your heart
Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
See we were not called to conform to the patterns of this world
See these are all things that it takes to be loved by the world
But now i want to talk about what it takes to be loved by God
Absolutely nothing
See the love of God is a love that we have a hard time accepting
Often times we dont even love ourselves
And if we would accept the love of God we would stop searching for the love of the world
But let me tell you a litlle bit about the love bit about the love of God
There is no greater love than this
John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Binds everything together
Collosians 3:14
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Cast out all fear
1 John 4:18
Nothing can separate us from it
Romans 8:38-39
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a]neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Many years ago, before the sensitive and politically correct society in which we live today, there was a boy who was continually in trouble. He was forever breaking the rules and always getting into trouble at school. His father could not understand why. He provided for him in every way with a good home, he spent time with him fishing and going to his ballgames, and he showered him with his unconditional love, but the father just couldn’t figure out why the boy wouldn’t mind? He had been raised in church and had even been in Sunday school for five years 5 years. His father was consistently reading the Bible to him and his father had never provoked him to anger. His son’s behavior was a mystery to him.
One day when his son was upstairs playing around with his baseball, which he’d been told repeatedly not to do, he ended up breaking one of his bedroom windows. The boy was ten year’s old and certainly knew better because his father had told him time and again to not play ball in the house. The father headed upstairs and took off his belt. The boy knew what was coming so he voluntarily bent over and kneeled next to his bed but the father said, “Son, here, take this belt” which his son did. Then his father took off his shirt and kneeled down on the bed and said “Son, I want you to give me seven lashes with this belt across my back.” His son started to cry and said that he couldn’t do it. His father kept insisting until the son finally relented and started hitting his father across the back with the belt but it wasn’t hard enough. He said, “Harder son, harder!” When the boy finally lashed the belt across his father’s back seven times with greater force the father asked him “Son, do you know why I had you do this?” The son said “No.” The father said, “When Jesus went to the cross for us, He took the worst punishment that has ever been inflicted upon any man. He was pummeled, He was beaten, His beard was plucked out, and He was punished like no one has ever been punished. Who do you really think did this to Jesus?” The boy, still whimpering, hesitated and finally said he thought it was the Jews or the Romans but the boy’s father said, “No, it was God the Father Who punished Jesus for everything that we have ever done wrong and or will ever do wrong in the future (Isaiah 52:14-15; 53:1-12). He took the punishment that He didn’t deserve to save those who didn’t deserve saving. That is how much the Father and Jesus loved us” (John 3:16). It was God’s love most gloriously displayed for us who deserved actually His wrath.
The boy was shaken deeply by this lesson and from that day forward, the boy never seemed to get into the same amount of trouble again…not perfect but changed. Maybe it was because he wasn’t sure how his dad would react again. The boy didn’t ever want to use the belt on his dad again although the father never said anything more about it. Whatever is was, the message of God’s love displayed on the cross by Christ forever changed this young man and it has forever changed us. The boy was not perfect after that, by no means, but neither are we after being saved but that doesn’t take away what was accomplished at the cross.
Romans 5:8
